Goblin Squad Member
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This was brought up in another topic but I believe it is worthy of giving a topic of it's own. Basically the idea that each alignment is going to give different benefits and rewards and that these should balance each-other so people are driven more by what role that actually want to be, and less by what role is going to be the most viable choice for PVP.
I figure there are two ways to do this:
1. Make the roles fairly balanced in the benefits they give.
2. Make people more effective if they act their alignment.
I think one of the best ways to do this is having player's actions impact the world in a significant way. Not like a regular sandbox where if you set a box down or plant a tree there will be a box or a tree there later but think Fable II. In Fable two if you go into a town and do work, go shopping, and take bounty hunting and slave freeing quests, or lowering the rent on the property you own it will increase the prosperity of that town. If you go into a town and steal things, take slaver or assassination missions, or raise the rent on the property you own there the town will become less prosperous.
I think the same concepts would work well in Pathfinder Online. Good aligned actions yield less benefit of a player or even require them to make a sacrifice but improve conditions for everyone in their hex/area. Evil aligned actions tend to yield direct benefits to the player doing them, but do significant damage to the area where they are doing them over time.
Good and Evil
So if you decide to go good aligned your actions are going to have REAL benefits for other players. If you go out and do tasks for the Paladins of Iomedae, their strength and presence will increase, lowering the amount of attacks by monsters and evil aligned creatures on people's towns and structures. If you go out and tend to the sick and wounded, and give food and coin to the poor and homeless NPCs you encounter on your travels the morale and prosperity of that region will rise, leading to higher productivity levels among the NPCs working in people's camps. If you build a temple to a good aligned deity, donate to an existing temple, or lower the price for bread and other basic essentials in your store, all of these things will have a positive impact on the hex or even region you are in.
As an evil player your actions will do the opposite. If you animate a corpse as your ally the foul magic you use may upset the spirits of the land and lead to an undead infestation. If you assassinate someone using a dark ritual fear will grip the streets and NPCs will become less productive leading to decreased harvesting gains. If you build a temple to Rogavug and drag people there to be sacrificed his power will spread and choke out the life of the land in which you live destroying crops and forests. If you steal someone's purse in the street, beat someone senseless, or burn down a business homeless and crippled with become more prevalent in your land while able bodied prosperous citizens decline.
The point of this is that if you act in an an evil manner, it will have a negative impact, that will actually even impact other players. If a good aligned clan sets up and starts slaying undead, bringing criminals to justice, and building a temple to Sarenrae, the land around them will prosper. Your camps will work harder, NPCs will spend more money, and there will be less aggressive monsters setting back your productivity. If an evil company comes along undead will start pouring from your cemeteries, fear will grip your populous, and there will be less prosperity in general. Their actions will lead you to animosity against them just like evil actions do in real life.
This leads players to PLAY THEIR ALIGNMENT. A good aligned player is not going to want to go assassinate someone knowing it will have a negative impact on their whole hex. They aren't going to say "Well you know, my necromancy isn't really harming anyone." when they are producing a menace that others will eventually have to deal with. On the other hand an evil player who just wants that mangled abomination for an ally or to make his hated enemy feel the pain of opposing him via assassination is going to say. "Who cares who it hurts? I just want my benefits."
Law vs. Chaos
Unlike good vs. evil law and chaos don't necessarily benefit or harm the area where they take hold. Law implies an orderly, organized, and honorable society if a bit overbearing and restrictive at times. Chaos implies a disorderly, unorganized, and reckless society with a lot of freedom and lack of restrictions.
A character may act lawfully by capturing criminals (Who may or may not have done anything evil) to stand trial. Supporting lawful organisations like the Paladins of Iomedae OR the Hellknights. Honoring their obligations and contracts with other players. Fight against chaotic NPCs and factions such as Thornkeep etc.
A character would act chaotically by doing things like sabotage (Even against evil factions), smuggling contraband, stealing things (Even from evil aligned factions), not honoring contracts, etc.
A hex or region where a lot of lawful actions are taking place is going to be effected by having a lot of NPC spawns that will keep order, and less that will randomly attack people. Roadways, street lamps, and other public infrastructure will be easier to build and upkeep. The controlling faction be it player or NPC will have the option to tax all transactions and have player be marked as criminals for not paying these taxes. It may even force a small tax on the hex to pay for extra guards and road upkeep (I know that doesn't sound good, but it does give lawful aligned areas an appropriate downside.)
Chaotic areas on the other hand are going to spawn a lot of hostile NPCs and dungeons because there is less order being enforced on the land. Roadways and other public infrastructure will decay more quickly. There will be a lot of NPC fences and mercenaries, and a lot of opportunities for players to buy contraband items which can be valuable trade goods. There will be no way of tracking transactions making an automatic taxation system impossible, and it may even become impossible to take control of that hex or incite spawns of NPC rebels if a company or kingdom already has control of it.
I think this sets a good stage for making law and chaos oppose one another without making either one the "most beneficial" to the players living in the region. Some are going to desire to pay their taxes in live in the fairly safe region with the well upkept public infrastructure. Others are going to desire to live in the land with the fences to sell their stolen goods, the places to buy their contraband artifacts, with no taxes, and no real control over those lands. Both have benefits for either good or evil players.
Company and Kingdom Alignments
One thing I think that is missing in a lot of games, that I would really love to see here is benefits to having themes in your company or kingdom. There are always a very few roleplay clans that are all one or two races, or all belong to one alignment, but in general clans are a mix of all races and alignments in most games unless they have a faction forced upon them.
This is a thread about alignment so I will not address racial themes here but instead discuss a system in which companies and kingdoms can choose an alignment, and get benefits for adhering to it.
Basically the idea is like this. Each company and kingdom can choose an alignment at it's founding, or even change it later on in they feel that is in their best interest. The alignments are the standard D&D alignments.
LG - NG - CG
LN - TN - CN
LE - NE - CE
L = Lawful, N = Neutral, C = Chaotic, G = Good, T = True, E = Evil.
There is then a point system to measure how true each clan is to it's alignment based on the alignment of it's members. 0 points for a member of the same alignment as the clan. 1 for a member of an alignment one step away from the clan. 2 for a member diagonal from the company's alignment and 5 for everything else. So for instance here are a few point values for alignments:
Lawful Good-
0 - 1 - 5
1 - 2 - 5
5 - 5 - 5
Neutral Good-
1 - 0 - 1
2 - 1 - 2
5 - 5 - 5
True Neutral -
2 - 1 - 2
1 - 0 - 1
2 - 1 - 2
The score judging how well a clan adheres to it's alignment is based off the average of these scores. So for instance a lawful good clan with all lawful good members is going to be 0. If instead they have 5 lawful good and 5 true neutral it will be 1. If a chaotic evil member then joins that clan it will be 1.36.
The clan is going to receive benefits based off of it's alignment and how well it adheres to it. 0 to 1 will give the full benefit. The benefit then goes down .5% per .01 the alignment raises from 1 to 2. So at two, you have 50% benefit from your alignment, in-fact it might even force a change in alignment based off of what alignment would give you the highest score.
Company alignment gives two benefits. First off it is going to effect an NPC's opinion of you. If you are talking to a neutral good NPC as a true neutral player in a neutral good company, they will react to you more favorably than a true good player with no company, or in a true neutral company. This can come with downsides too. If you are lawful good and belong to a chaotic evil company, the guards may react to you accordingly and run you out of town. Think of it like being in the US military. People see your uniform and instantly respect or despise you based off their opinions of the US military. However if that organizations reputation becomes tainted by accepting a lot of bag eggs, so will the social benefits of belonging to it.
The second benefit is this: Actions belonging to your company's chosen alignment become more effective. If you are in a lawful good company and partake in lawful good actions it will reap benefits for your area faster. If you are in a chaotic evil clan and take part in chaotic evil activities, it will reap better rewards, and plunge your area into chaos faster. The reason behind this is:
1. It encourages companies to take members of similar alignment at these rewards will be diminished as they accept more members of opposite alignments.
2. It helps make sure companies are working toward their alignment's goals. If a chaotic evil clan clears out an undead spawn it won't give them or their hex as much of a positive impact as if a lawful good clan does it. If they commit an assassination the fear will grip the population harder and longer, as well as increasing the penalty for being assassinated.
Any that is just my brief list of ideas. Discuss!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of enhancing or detracting from a hex based on actions. Not too sure how I feel about companies being encouraged to stick to one alignment, and one alignment only. That makes for some rather restrictive and anti-social behavior from companies, something that I *don't* want to see encouraged in PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of enhancing or detracting from a hex based on actions. Not too sure how I feel about companies being encouraged to stick to one alignment, and one alignment only. That makes for some rather restrictive and anti-social behavior from companies, something that I *don't* want to see encouraged in PFO.
I don't understand your objection.
Are you saying you want Lawful Good companies to allow Evil aligned players to join? or are you saying that a Lawful Good company should be allowed to change it's alignment to Neutral Good, or Lawful Neutral, at a later point in time?
If your complaint is the first, I think you're sorely misunderstanding the purpose of this system. It makes no sense for a LG company to allow an CE character to join. They are diametrically opposed alignments... There's not a chance in the universe that Paladins of Iomedae would let a sociopathic serial killer join their ranks.
If your complaint is the second, it's moot as Andius pointed out that companies/kingdoms would be allowed to change their group's alignment.
To add to that, I think it would be interesting if when it came time to change a group's alignment, you were only allowed to change to an alignment that would decrease the overall score.
You might start as a NG mercenary group, but if enough CG players join, switching the group alignment to CG would lower your score.
This would also force companies to 'cull' members from their rosters if they wanted to change in a direction that would otherwise be opposed.
If the aforementioned NG company instead wanted to become LG, they would need to remove all (or at least most) of the CG players from the list in order for the change to be appropriate.
This process would force companies to mimic real life changes in leadership/purpose. When the leadership changes, or when the companies mission changes, those whose views are incompatible have to be let go.
(Even if such a requirement isn't included, I am definitely a fan of this system or one very similar to it)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of enhancing or detracting from a hex based on actions. Not too sure how I feel about companies being encouraged to stick to one alignment, and one alignment only. That makes for some rather restrictive and anti-social behavior from companies, something that I *don't* want to see encouraged in PFO.
Well they can always go true neutral. It should be pretty easy to keep your number below 1 based on what you want your clan to be and having a number over 2 shouldn't ruin your ability to be an effective company.
I just don't want to see every single company having shining paladins fighting alongside vile necromancers.
There should be some benefits to having your company make sense RP-wise.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So when you suggest assassination create fear in a hex, logically I would take that to mean the hex where the actual assassination occurred, rather than where the assassin calls home.
I point that out as a wonderful griefing mechanic that you might prefer to avoid. Else a friend and I could assassinate the spit out of each other using weak alt characters whom we create and delete over and over to not deal with the penalty of being assassinated, until our enemy's NPCs wet themselves silly with fright. The streets will stink of fear and soiled trousers!!!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Are you saying you want Lawful Good companies to allow Evil aligned players to join? or are you saying that a Lawful Good company should be allowed to change it's alignment to Neutral Good, or Lawful Neutral, at a later point in time?
I mean this system encourages a company to accept people of only 1 alignment. I'd rather not see that happen. If the bonus for doing lawful acts while part of a LG company, that is fine. It encourages the player to act in a certain faction, but doesn't penalize the company for being a bit broader and allowing more players in.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I mean this system encourages a company to accept people of only 1 alignment. I'd rather not see that happen. If the bonus for doing lawful acts while part of a LG company, that is fine. It encourages the player to act in a certain faction, but doesn't penalize the company for being a bit broader and allowing more players in.
It still sounds like you're trying to justify LG companies letting Chaotic Neutral or worse members into their ranks.
This is something that SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.
If you want Chaotic Neutral members in your company, make your company Neutral Good, or True Neutral. It's that simple.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I mean this system encourages a company to accept people of only 1 alignment. I'd rather not see that happen. If the bonus for doing lawful acts while part of a LG company, that is fine. It encourages the player to act in a certain faction, but doesn't penalize the company for being a bit broader and allowing more players in.It still sounds like you're trying to justify LG companies letting Chaotic Neutral or worse members into their ranks.
This is something that SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.
If you want Chaotic Neutral members in your company, make your company Neutral Good, or True Neutral. It's that simple.
Or I mean exactly what I said. I don't want to see penalties for letting in a variety of people. I challenge you to find any organization on the planet with identical views on everything. Why should we try to force that online?
If the system were that if you did an act that matched the Company's professed alignment, it would count as 1.25 of that act (or some such number), I think you get the incentive to work as a group, but not a penalty if you want LG and CG in the same Company.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So when you suggest assassination create fear in a hex, logically I would take that to mean the hex where the actual assassination occurred, rather than where the assassin calls home.
I point that out as a wonderful griefing mechanic that you might prefer to avoid. Else a friend and I could assassinate the spit out of each other using weak alt characters whom we create and delete over and over to not deal with the penalty of being assassinated, until our enemy's NPCs wet themselves silly with fright. The streets will stink of fear and soiled trousers!!!
That is exactly what I am suggesting. If your frightful assassin is a mild mannered church going sort who stalks the streets of an enemy town by night, he will create fear where he does that and not where he is from.
For instance if the Great Legionnaires are controlling a town, we might tend to act more lawfully in our own territory. However in our enemies town we may act more chaotically lowering their public order, and perhaps inciting a rebellion against them.
They on the other hand can do lawful acts to make sure that the people stay in line. If you assassinate a lot of people in our territory to create fear in the streets we can apprehend criminals and help out the Church of Iomedae to restore confidence and raise public order.
As far as killing your friend over and over that is pretty easy to solve. Simply make a cooldown on the same person being assassinated having any effect on public order. You could make it as long as a week. Forcing you to go slay either a broad list of targets or a lot of random people to have a significant effect. Also it sounds like assassinations will require certain items and rituals which might be fairly expensive to do if you aren't getting paid for them so that even killing 40 different alts in a row might require a heavy investment. I'm sure there are endless lists of abuses you could come up with but I can probably come up with a solution to every one.
Or I mean exactly what I said. I don't want to see penalties for letting in a variety of people. I challenge you to find any organization on the planet with identical views on everything. Why should we try to force that online?
If the system were that if you did an act that matched the Company's professed alignment, it would count as 1.25 of that act (or some such number), I think you get the incentive to work as a group, but not a penalty if you want LG and CG in the same Company.
The same view on everything? Absolutely not. Large amounts of shared values? Absolutely. Go into the Republican national convention and scream "LETS RAISE TAXES AND BAN GUN OWNERSHIP!" see how well you are received. Or even better just "LETS BAN GUN OWNERSHIP!" at a National Rifle Association convention. Go join the Salvation army or a soup kitchen and say "You know everyone really just needs to fend for themselves, charity is just supporting the reproduction of the weak." It's not uncommon for a group to have varied beliefs on many issues but there are certain common beliefs that tie many groups together.
Also lets re-examine my system here. I said 0 points for same alignment, 1 point for an alignment one step away, 2 for diagonal, and 5 for everything else. You can have 1 point before you lose ANY benefits. So we'll use our own clan Great Legionnaires as an example.
We are Neutral Good. So every Neutral Good player actually LOWERS our penalty we receive from non-aligned players. We can accept players who are Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, and True-Neutral at NO PENALTY. Lawful Neutral, and Chaotic Neutral actually have the potential to negate our benefits or change our alignment. BUT if there is one or more neutral good player for every player of those alignments it NEGATES that penalty.
So we can have a clan with infinite numbers or LG, CG, and TN players and a number of players up to but no greater than our number of NG players with NO penalties to our benefits. That is hardly narrowing it down to one specific alignment.
Let me also add that even if we lose ALL our benefits these are benefits that make our good aligned actions more effective than players belonging to a non-good aligned company. It is not as though if we lose the ability to make a positive impact on the world through our good actions. We simply don't get that bonus, or a bonus to interacting with neutral good NPCs. This is a VERY logical thing to happen if our membership is disproportionaly packed with members who are both unconcerned with good and evil, and highly concerned about law or chaos. Or even worse, are evil.
The reason we are aligned that way is because I have CHOSEN to make good a high priority to us, and not law or chaos. It is important to me that our clan is a strong force for good, and we don't alienate people concerned with good because of their beliefs on law or chaos. As a result we can accept all good aligned members with no penalties under this system as well as a few neutral players who can justify why they want to belong to a neutral good organisation. Something that will be fairly difficult for chaotic and lawful neutral players. And there is absolutely NO reason I can see myself allowing an evil character to join. But even if I wanted to I could, as long as we had 5 neutral good characters to balance it out, or were ok with the reduced benefits.
In opposition a Chaotic Evil clan is obviously going to like Chaotic Evil members with Neutral Evil and Chaotic Neutral having a lot in common with them. There is no logical reason they would pack their company with more True Neutral players than Chaotic Evil ones, or want to allow people who are strongly lawful or good. Nor would anyone strongly lawful or good want to join an organization like that. They might come and preach among them, or tend their wounded, but they are not going to be considering themselves a part of them or running alongside them into battle as an actual member of the company. Were that organization to feel that it is more important to have all their members be evil than chaotic, they could simply switch alignment to Neutral Evil. They are chaotic evil because they CHOSE to make chaos an important part of their identity.
In the end if a company does not want these limitations, they will either select whatever alignment best fits their membership, or just go neutral good. It's not like a company that doesn't care about alignment is going to care about increased benefits from alignment based actions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius, In case it wasn't made clear in my earlier posts, I think this system is absolutely brilliant. Everything from it's intended purpose to the actual mechanics of it resonate very strongly with what I believe companies and alignments are intended to bring to PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius, In case it wasn't made clear in my earlier posts, I think this system is absolutely brilliant. Everything from it's intended purpose to the actual mechanics of it resonate very strongly with what I believe companies and alignments are intended to bring to PFO.
Thanks. I understood you supported the system on some level but it's always nice to hear my ideas are appreciated. :)
There are a few things I think I didn't cover quite well enough or forgot to include entirely I would like to touch on real quick.
Hexes Effecting Surrounding Hexes
Obviously your actions are going to have the largest impact directly on the hex where they take place. However large changes in alignment will effect the hexes near it to.
If there are two lawful good kingdoms living next to each other things will be pretty good for them. They are going to peacefully coexist and support each other's values. However if the second lawful-good kingdom comes under attack by chaotic evil forces, who start slaughtering townsfolk, destroying lawful good churches, and generally doing things that will drive that hex toward chaos and evil there will be consequences for the first kingdom as well.
As choas and evil take hold of their adjacent kingdom they will start seeing things like wounded refuges coming over their borders and the vile forces of undead, bandits, etc. gaining strength in the 2nd kingdom will begin to spill over into their territory as well. Not in the magnitude that they are in the first kingdom, but in a magnitude that it will make life generally harder for them.
This serves two purposes. First off, it helps build communities and alliances. It makes the first kingdom CARE about what happens to their neighbors even if that kingdom and the kingdom attacking them are fairly small and not of great threat or benefit to the first kingdom.
Second off it encourages honorable forces to fight honorably. Lets take the same two kingdoms from the first scenario but make the attacking clans C ALSO lawful good. We'll say clan B and C were once a single kingdom now split by a disagreement over who their rightful king is.
If kingdom C decides "Well the easiest way to weaken kingdom B is to slaughter their villagers, sabotage their defenses, and steal their supplies." they are going to have a chaotic evil effect on that hex. They don't really care because kingdom B are their enemies, but now they are ALSO negatively impacting everyone around that hex including clan A.
Were they to wage war in a lawful good manner instead, only attacking military targets, and only on a battlefield, it would no drive that hex toward chaotic evil, and they would not inconvenience neutral parties and possibly even invoke the wrath of kingdom A.
How Alignment Changes
Alignment would work like this (The numbers are changeable. Infact I think only 200 points from absolute good to absolute evil is far too few but it illustrates the point.)
There is Good from 100 to 50 points on the G/E alignment axis.
There is Neutral from 50 to -50 points on the G/E alignment axis.
There is Evil from -50 to 100 points along the G/E alignment axis.
(And actually, there is no need for "arbitrary limitations" with this system. No need to cap the level of good or evil you can reach for reasons that should become apparent soon.)
Your position on that axis effects how much good and evil actions change your alignment.
So lets say your alignment is 0, and you heal a wounded traveler. That gives you gives you 3 points of good.
At 90 it might only give you a single point of good. At -100 it might give you 9 points of good.
The opposite is also true. If you instead steal his wallet it will give you -3 points of good. If you are at 90 evil -1, and at 100 good -9.
The point of doing this is it should be fairly easy to maintain neutrality but difficult to be truly good or evil. Reaching a very high level or good or evil should require devoting yourself to that end. A lawful good paladin must swear off chaotic and evil actions nearly entirely to maintain that status. A truly chaotic evil person is not someone who snatches a lot of purses but also pays their taxes gives to the needy. They are someone who consistently acts in a manner that harms others and flaunts their disregard for the law.
This is very important because if a certain action always moves you the same amount on the good/evil or law/chaos axis, that means that acting in a fairly neutral fashion that leans slightly toward lawful good will eventually make you lawful good. It shouldn't happen like that. People should not have to say "Ah man I'm about to lose my neutrality, time to burn down an orphanage!" if they don't show consistent behavior toward any alignment they should default to true neutral.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The only thing I would add to this is just nit-picky about the consequences of hexes shifting alignment towards chaos/evil.
If a good kingdom splits into two factions, the resulting chaos should primarily result in banditry, refugees, and possibly some goblin or other neutral monsters taking advantage of the instability.
Things like undead, devils, demons, and other monstrous creatures should be reserved for the shifts towards evil that result from cultists of various evil deities sacrificing innocents and the like.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a good kingdom splits into two factions, the resulting chaos should primarily result in banditry, refugees, and possibly some goblin or other neutral monsters taking advantage of the instability.
I kind of thought about that too, and within the hex I agree. Things should get a bit more chaotic due to soldiers generally keeping the peace having to fight a war instead. But I think the difference would be people are going to be fleeing the hex in terror from a chaotic evil invasion where a lawful good army that refuses to pillage, harm civilians, and may even render aid to the common citizenry... the chaos is very unlikely to spill over into other hexes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As long as the effects are related to the source of the conflict/change that's fine.
I just don't want to see undead rising from their graves because there's a rebellion the next kingdom over. Nor should I be experiencing bandit problems if the neighboring city has been taken over by a cult of necromancers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as killing your friend over and over that is pretty easy to solve. Simply make a cooldown on the same person being assassinated having any effect on public order. You could make it as long as a week. Forcing you to go slay either a broad list of targets or a lot of random people to have a significant effect. Also it sounds like assassinations will require certain items and rituals which might be fairly expensive to do if you aren't getting paid for them so that even killing 40 different alts in a row might require a heavy investment. I'm sure there are endless lists of abuses you could come up with but I can probably come up with a solution to every one....
First of all, re-rolling characters to do it over and over. So that gets around your cooldown idea.
Second, they have not said yet that assassination will require items and rituals. They have only said it will be more complicated than just killing someone. Whatever it requires, a cooperative target will make it much easier.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius, this sounds like you were inspired by Ryan's recent statement:
Evil societies in the game should have unique and cool things they could accomplish. But accomplishing those things should require betrayal, deception, murder and pain & suffering inflicted on others.
I was thrilled to see him lay that out as a guiding principle.
I am a little concerned about player-initiated, repeatable acts that can game the system, for the same reasons Blaeringr points out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ban them. Everyone runs out of credit cards eventually.
EQ actually had a very interesting system in place to deal with griefing... intentional or unintentional.
They had anchor points that a character or bank inventory could be reset back to. I don't know if this carried over into EQ2 but basically here is how it worked.
Every 4 hours or so, it'd take a "snapshot" of your account. When the game glitched the hell out and my character lost everything at level 37 I was upset. I petitioned the GM, GM told me I would lose everything I had recently acquired. Poof, I was back to normal. I see that being able to work here.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First of all, re-rolling characters to do it over and over. So that gets around your cooldown idea.
Second, they have not said yet that assassination will require items and rituals. They have only said it will be more complicated than just killing someone. Whatever it requires, a cooperative target will make it much easier.
First of all it would require 3 players each time, not just 2:
1 to set the contract, 1 to accept the contract, and 1 to be assassinatedFurthermore, as a potential solution:
Make assassinated characters unable to be deleted until after a certain cooldown has passed. (I'm thinking a week?)
Then it's simply a matter of preventing accounts with a certain number of assassinated characters from impacting hexes with either their deaths, or with deaths they carry out.
Alternatively, you could have the effect of assassination on a single hex follow a something like a logarithmic curve.
Each subsequent assassination would have a diminishing effect upon the populace.
Finding out there is 1 assassin in your midst would be terrifying. Finding out there are 2 would be even more so. But after a certain point, the number of assassins/assassinations becomes just 'a number'. and the impact further deaths would have would be negligible.
I would also put the 'counter' for this curve on something like a week long timer.
Random number example:
Whenever someone is assassinated, the impact of that death would be equal to 1/A where A is the number of assassinated characters in that hex in the last 7 days.
So if we started at an arbitrary measure of '0' in terms of chaos.
1 assassination would mean '1' chaos. 2 assassinations would be '1.5' chaos. then '1.75' and so on.
This puts a cap on how much a single hex can be impacted by rampant assassination in a single week.
With THIS example, in means constant assassination would have a measure of '2' impact upon the hex each week.
Obviously the value of an assassination and the equation for the diminishing returns could be adjusted to find a 'fair' solution, but yeah...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I prefer banning people. That actually gets rid of the people trying to circumvent game mechanics to serve their own ends.
Otherwise, those same people will just look for another way to exploit the game. Personally, I'm tired of that happening. Good games get ruined by those that don't really want to play the game it is supposed to be played.
BAN THEM. Blacklist their credit card and revoke their River Kingdoms citizenship. Blacklist the name on the credit card too. I would even go so far as to fine them through the creditcard before you ban them... although I don't ever think that will happen. If you were charged a year's worth of subscription for violating the user agreement KNOWINGLY, had a chance to prove yourself innocent and couldn't because of the fact that you weren't you deserve it for trying to ruin the game for other people. Just include this in the user agreement that they have to accept every time they launch the game and give them the chance to prove themselves innocent of the violation.
It's simple. Don't be a jackass. Don't try and ruin the game for others and claim it's being evil cause it's not. Its harrassment.
[/dismounts soapbox]
As far as the system Andius proposed, I think it needs some tweaking here and there but it's pretty much spot on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Unfortunately, you can't ban "people". You can only ban accounts, and I'm not even sure you can ban "credit cards" without really pissing off someone who's brother or kid got banned. At any rate, you certainly can't ban "game cards".
The only way I can see to make any real difference is to make significant benefits to having a developed account. Griefers would probably not have the patience to spend time developing their account just to be able to use it once or twice before it got banned.
If there's a way that the community can see how developed an account is, then we'll have a tool to let us know who is a better risk for higher levels of trust.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Unfortunately, you can't ban "people".
Why not? You give your credit card information for them to set up the account. When the name and address match a banned person, it gets denied.
I'm not even sure you can ban "credit cards" without really pissing off someone who's brother or kid got banned.
And?
I'm not trying to be harsh or hostile or anything else like that. Please don't take that this way.
The reason people keep griefing is because there is no real consequence for it. Like you said about the game card, you can't ban those. Someone can always buy one and create an account and circumvent being banned.
Don't offer that payment option. Please. It was the worst idea ever. Did it bring in more customers? Yes. Were those "commercial" customers worth the damage they did to the "gaming" experience? I don't believe so. Quanitity vs. Quality. Unfortunately, from a commercial enterprise aspect, quantity almost always wins.
How about parents monitor what their children are doing? My 9 and 12 year olds play Modern Warfare 3, rated M for Mature. My 9 year old doesn't have a mic and won't until he's 12. My 12 year old has to keep his door open so we can hear what he is saying and see what he is doing. He thought it'd be cool to curse at someone after he killed them. It wasn't so cool when I made him apologize then turn the game off. He didn't touch the game for a month.
If you let your "kid" brother play Pathfinder, your brother should be old enough to understand what a User-Agreement is and understand what getting banned means. Otherwise, your "kid" brother has no business playing the game.
@Nihimon - I agree with you on the developed account tool. I forgot which thread I posted it in, but I believe we should be able to rate each other as players. Each time we engage in combat (co-op or pvp), trade, or contract, you should be given an opportunity to right click the player and rate them (1-5), with feed back. Not only does this allow for players to see what the person on the side is likely to do, it gives the Devs ammo when they do believe you have done something ban worthy.
Also, I loathe eBay, but they had/have a good system in place. Once you recieve X ammount of positive feedback additional account features are unlocked. Implement this in PFO. Make the developed account something that is only attainable by acceptable player interaction via the rating system as well as in game contributions. In essense, getting rewarded for good behavior.
This too can be exploited by passing an item from one person to another back and forth. Limit the amount of feedback achievable from one person to another. Don't allow those accounts who have characters in the same charter to rate each other. This is the only other option I see working beside a strict user-agreement.
I'm done hijacking Andius's thread, if I post more about this, I'll start a seperate thread.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You give your credit card information for them to set up the account.
Except... you don't...
Goblin works has stated on numerous occasions that you do NOT need to pay in order to play in PFO. That necessarily means that no credit card is needed to create an account.
I'm not even sure you can ban "credit cards" without really pissing off someone who's brother or kid got banned.And?
And that's not a sound business strategy.
Don't offer that payment option. Please. It was the worst idea ever. Did it bring in more customers? Yes. Were those "commercial" customers worth the damage they did to the "gaming" experience? I don't believe so. Quanitity vs. Quality. Unfortunately, from a commercial enterprise aspect, quantity almost always wins.
That's a terrible idea. Some people don't have access to credit cards. All they have is cash, and MAYBE a checking account. Getting rid of every player who doesn't own a credit card would get rid of the same percentage of quality players as preventing any other payment method.
Further more, as I stated above, since accounts can be made without either a credit or game card, removing this as a payment option would do LITERALLY nothing but prevent goblinworks from making money.
How about parents monitor what their children are doing? My 9 and 12 year olds play Modern Warfare 3, rated M for Mature. My 9 year old doesn't have a mic and won't until he's 12. My 12 year old has to keep his door open so we can hear what he is saying and see what he is doing. He thought it'd be cool to curse at someone after he killed them. It wasn't so cool when I made him apologize then turn the game off. He didn't touch the game for a month.
Though I will say that I don't think children under the age of 14 should be swearing, simply because of its colloquial use, this is probably one of the least of your concerns.
If you let your "kid" brother play Pathfinder, your brother should be old enough to understand what a User-Agreement is and understand what getting banned means. Otherwise, your "kid" brother has no business playing the game.
Agreed
This too can be exploited by passing an item from one person to another back and forth. Limit the amount of feedback achievable from one person to another. Don't allow those accounts who have characters in the same charter to rate each other. This is the only other option I see working beside a strict user-agreement.
I think preventing people in the same charter from giving feedback is a bad idea, as those are the people you'll be having a very decent percentage of your interactions with. Rather, I think each account should only be able to rate each other account once.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First of all, re-rolling characters to do it over and over. So that gets around your cooldown idea.
Second, they have not said yet that assassination will require items and rituals. They have only said it will be more complicated than just killing someone. Whatever it requires, a cooperative target will make it much easier.
And I said I could come up with solutions all day. Don't give the effect to kills on characters less than a week old with less than 24 hours playtime if rolling alts is so easy.
I believe he used the word "component". That is a buzz word for, "It's going to cost something be it money or time."
Also as Karthas points out, it should be hard to plunge a hex into chaos via a single action repeated over and over. Institute diminishing returns on all actions so that people can't just spam them. In order to plunge a tile into chaos you would also need to slaughter NPC civilians, or rob goods and kill members of good aligned spawns, or sacrifice people on an altar of your chosen evil deity. Ideally the alignment of the tile would not be determined by one person. It would be determined by the general actions of the populace. So in order to have a real effect you would need a group of people going around committing many different evil actions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Nihimon - I agree with you on the developed account tool. I forgot which thread I posted it in, but I believe we should be able to rate each other as players. Each time we engage in combat (co-op or pvp), trade, or contract, you should be given an opportunity to right click the player and rate them (1-5), with feed back. Not only does this allow for players to see what the person on the side is likely to do, it gives the Devs ammo when they do believe you have done something ban worthy.
Also, I loathe eBay, but they had/have a good system in place. Once you recieve X ammount of positive feedback additional account features are unlocked. Implement this in PFO. Make the developed account something that is only attainable by acceptable player interaction via the rating system as well as in game contributions. In essense, getting rewarded for good behavior.
Other games have tried this, usually just for forums and not actually in game, and in every case it turns into a popularity contest. The size of one's company and circle of friends generally has a greater impact on reputation than actual contributions. Further, veteran players who have accumulated a lot of reputation frequently drown newer players they don't like in negative reputation.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just like I'm not saying Andius' idea is bad - I'm saying I see potential for abuse.
Here's a link to a quick search of threads about all the drama caused by a reputation system in DDO: http://forums.ddo.com/search.php?searchid=18940655I know a guy who got banned from the forums for over a year because of one disagreement. He finally convinced a mod to review it and he found that it was in fact a single guild negative repping him. Going back over a long period and finding every post of his they could find and neg repping him until he was banned.
Again, a good reputation system can work and be a good thing, but a poorly designed one is a nightmare.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...just like I'm not saying Andius' idea is bad - I'm saying I see potential for abuse.
With some basic preventative measures in place I really don't see a potential for much abuse.
If you can only kill a player for the effect once a week, there is no effect if you kill someone newer than a week or with less than 24 hours playtime, there is diminishing returns on ALL actions if they are being used disproportionaly to the others, etc. there basically comes a point where abusing the system starts taking a lot of effort.
At that point, abusing the system is no longer worthwhile, because the effort of doing these things the normal way is what you are trying to avoid.
Personally if you want to make 40 new accounts, let them sit there afk for 24 hours, log them all on a week after their creation and slaughter them back to back to back with the diminishing return associated... fine.
If you want to coordinate with a buddy to be pickpocketing villagers and another to be killing guards and paladins fine.
There is a certain point where you have put in enough effort that it doesn't upset me much. Especially since I am going to have a whole company dedicated to good on my hex along with any other good aligned players who want to live there, and will have hopefully driven off all the evil aligned settlements, your actions and effort will probably be negated within an hour or two.
If you want to bring your whole clan and start a choas spree, well then that kind of concerted effort deserves to have an effect.
That is sort of the point of the system.
PS. In the debate about banning everyone is forgetting something. There will only be a limited number of players allowed in until the game has reached maturity. If you get banned, you have just given up your spot in the 4500 to the next person in line. Likely, you will not be able to get back into the game for some time to come.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as "developed accounts", it's not really a question of reputation, it's a simple question of how much time(money) has been spent training that account. Personally, I don't see a problem with new players being treated differently for a month. Most griefers won't bother to invest an entire month into an account that's likely to get banned once they do what they've been waiting to do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There's several layers to this, isn't there?
1. Account security/authentification
2. Economic disincentives to gold spammers etc
3. Game System Alignment rule set
4. Player factions options
eg: a/c's for mmorpgs probably for quality community is going to have to make efforts to insist on greater authentification for account creation; already see this elsewhere. How does that affect F2P players? Not sure, but could be a clash.
If that is robust it helps the alignment rule set some, and maybe player factions can have some interesting governing rules in kindgoms that could affect players operating in that area?
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Goblin Squad Member
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In any case, setting up layer upon layer of defense to make an already very artificial feeling system immune to such abuses seems like a problem in and of itself.
Are you going to suggest timers and caps on accounts for every single ability that can sway the alignment of a hex one way or another?
-will you stop friends from capturing each other as criminals who want to make their own chaotic settlement officially lawful?
-will you cap the number of Paladins permitted to do good quests for evil settlements?
If not, even if you're lucky enough to avoid any exploitation at all, then at the very least you will get players complaining on the forums that their home hex is being skewed by people whom they allege to be cheating.
How many caps will need to be put in place and closely monitored for loopholes to make something like this work? Sounds like a system that would work great if you had a really versatile DM...you know, rather than a server cluster...
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Goblin Squad Member
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In any case, setting up layer upon layer of defense to make an already very artificial feeling system immune to such abuses seems like a problem in and of itself.
Are you going to suggest timers and caps on accounts for every single ability that can sway the alignment of a hex one way or another?
No. There is no reason to cap the effect killing NPCs will have, or robbing from NPCs, are basically any interaction related to NPCs because they aren't going to just sit there and let you do it. I still favor diminishing returns though, and would also note that once you kill enough paladins or undead... their spawn should dissapear. So doing the same NPC related action all day isn't going to be viable, but not because of "artificial" restrictions but more logical ones. IE, they are all dead, or they have nothing left to steal.
-will you stop friends from capturing each other as criminals who want to make their own chaotic settlement officially lawful?
-will you cap the number of Paladins permitted to do good quests for evil settlements?
I favor a cooldown on all player related actions and obviously don't favor giving any benefits for doing things to members of your own kingdoms/companies.
I there is no cooldown it's going to lead to some very immersion breaking behavior. For example camping respawn locations. Or stealing then dropping the same thing over and over. Or sabotaging the same equipment or defensive structure over and over while your buddy repairs it.
Causing chaos should consist of running all over the hex stealing different things, killing whoever you see, or sabotaging anything you can get to.
Upholding the law should involve making patrols or hunting down criminals. You can obviously still that guy, or bring justice to that criminal if you run into them twice within the cooldown it just won't effect the conditions of the hex. I think that is far better than having no system where your actions effect the world, or having a system that encourages camping.
How many caps will need to be put in place and closely monitored for loopholes to make something like this work? Sounds like a system that would work great if you had a really versatile DM...you know, rather than a server cluster...
No system is perfect but this can easily work with some very basic restrictions. The benefit if having it outweighs the few jerks who will do nothing but look for loopholes.